至尊英语阅读资料之汽车专题第18集.pdfVIP

Automotive articles 18 [426]Active Safety - A Little Help From Your Electronic Friends It started out simple enough. Historians may argue the chronology, but Active Safety likely began with the horn, an effective way to alert the guy ahead of you that you might run into him if he doesnt move. Then someone came up with the idea of something called a turn signal to let other drivers know which way you were thinking of going. That led to another great idea, brake lights that let the guy behind you know you were slowing down. Active safety has mushroomed ever since. Much of the safety technology developed over the past 50 years has focused on protecting people in a crash -- reacting to an impact with passive safety technology like seat belts and airbags. The future of active safety seeks to help prevent accidents in ways the inventor of the horn never imagined. One of the most common active safety systems widely used today is anti-lock braking. Anti-lock braking senses impending wheel lock-up and pulses the brakes many times a second -- faster than most humans could -- allowing drivers to maintain steering control under severe braking conditions. The brake controllers for ABS also enable traction control and dynamic stability systems; the three lie at the heart of most near-term active safety systems. Among these systems are sensors that monitor the angle of the steering wheel, the front wheels and the vehicle itself; the speed at which each wheel is turning; the engine speed; and, in some cases, how hard the driver is hitting the brakes. The electronic components process this information in milliseconds and take corrective action to assist the driver. This is where we are today, but the technology that will soon be available to consumers will take active safety to another level. The elements of adaptive cruise control and steer-by-wire will be added, and radar might sense impending collisions and either warn the driver or enable the vehicle to t